Please Come And Be Fat

December 11, 2021 4:20 PM

"I don’t want to be standing here as a model of fat transness but I am glad to be because nobody else is." S. Bear Bergman writes about doing an "extremely peculiar community service" at a trans conference.
posted by merriment (7 comments total)

I just shared this on Facebook, with this comment:

Since I started using a mobility scooter, I have had to deal with a great many odd interactions, structural barriers, and micro-aggressions, like the person who practically ran across the room as soon as the first break started at an all-day Sacred Harp workshop to tell me I should have bariatric surgery, or the person who told me she was so glad to see me at her (Quaker) yearly meeting annual sessions because it "showed how accessible" they are—I didn't say, but maybe should have, that if they really were, there would be more than one of me here--or the people I had to ask, at that same yearly meeting, to move the piles of stuff they'd put "out of the way" at the top of a ramp or in front of the button to activate the power doors, or the curb cut I followed onto a long sidewalk that, at the other end, terminated in a a curb that was not cut. Etc. Etc. Etc.

And then I think, you know, I have to be here, not only because I am what I am—a fat woman who uses a mobility scooter—and I take me with myself everywhere, and I'm not willing to be cut off from something I value because of fat phobia, imperfect efforts at accessibility, and the thoughtlessness of other people, but also because SOMEBODY needs to be the fat woman in the mobility scooter visibly present and unashamed.

Anyway, here is S. Bear Bregman on being asked to join a top-surgery show-and-tell because no fat men had shown up. I have loved ones who have set aside their own discomfort to perform this service as well, at other conferences. Sometimes just showing up makes you a hero to somebody.
posted by Orlop at 5:30 PM on December 11, 2021 [37 favorites]

I read his advice columns back in the day and didn't care for them much, but this was super sweet. I'm so glad he did this and wrote about it. Thanks for posting it, merriment.
posted by Vatnesine at 7:17 PM on December 11, 2021 [1 favorite]

What a lovely read. Thank you for posting this.
posted by tristeza at 7:41 PM on December 11, 2021 [2 favorites]

I remember Quince Mountain posting a hairy, (deliberately extra) pudgy pic ahead of going on Naked and Afraid, and celebrating his body in the wake of it. Just as a pudgy, hairy cis dude it means a bit to me.
posted by wotsac at 7:54 PM on December 11, 2021 [4 favorites]

whew, i teared up, reading this. i can only imagine the possibilities he unlocked in so many of those attendees, just by being there.
posted by flod at 12:26 AM on December 12, 2021 [5 favorites]

I'm a fat (straight, cis) woman and I can't imagine what it would take for me to stand up in a room like that and just show off my fatness for people to examine, but it's clear that it was a mitzvah he was performing there. I got a little teary reading it.
posted by jacquilynne at 6:47 AM on December 12, 2021 [11 favorites]

Bear is a true mensch, and I appreciate all he has done for trans folks.
posted by wicked_sassy at 12:18 PM on December 20, 2021